Presidential poll puts Nigeria to the test
Nigeria’s presidential election next month is the closest contest since the end of military rule in 1999 and is taking place against a worrying backdrop of civil conflict and economic trouble. Gideon Rachman is joined by Tom Burgis and William Wallis to discuss whether the country can hold together.

The unusual manoeuvres of a mysterious object launched by the Russian military are being tracked by western space agencies, stoking fears over the revival of a defunct Kremlin project to destroy satellites

Distrust of foreigners taps deep into Turkey’s national psyche and history. But anti-western rhetoric has hardened following anti-government protests last year and conflict in the region that has left Ankara feeling isolated

Both in private and public the Russians are now making increasingly explicit references to their country’s nuclear arsenal – but is it just posturing to stop the west supplying military aid to Ukraine?

Abubakar Shekau has been killed and resurrected so many times now he is using up his proverbial nine lives .

The leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram extremists appeared on Thursday in a fresh video released to the French news agency AFP, declaring the border areas with Cameroon as “Muslim territory” and boasting that only Allah could take his breath away. Read more

The political leaders of all 32 nations competing in the World Cup will be praying for a good performance from their national side. With the possible exception of Barack Obama, they can confidently expect to bask in any success achieved on the playing fields of Brazil. Football glory is welcome for any country. But, right now, it feels particularly important for those countries that are currently troubled by national identity crises – in particular Belgium, Nigeria, Spain and even, France. Fortunately, all four countries have good teams that have arrived in Brazil with high hopes. Read more

Nigerian teachers at a rally in Lagos protesting against the abduction of 200 schoolgirls and the killing of 173 of their colleagues by the Islamist Boko Haram group. Getty

Osama Bin Laden must be chuckling from his grave on the ocean floor. In the wake of 9/11 he explicitly targeted Nigeria as a new front-line in his global jihad. When the UN Security Council on Thursday blacklisted Boko Haram alongside al-Qaeda and its other affiliates, Nigeria had formally arrived.

It is the latest in a series of international gestures intended to isolate the group, which provoked international outrage for a series of atrocities including abducting more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls and threatening to sell them into slavery. But its value is little more than symbolic.

Join the dots from this week’s news stories and you get a picture of an African continent that is increasingly troubled by Islamist terrorism. On Friday, the British government started evacuating hundreds of tourists from the Kenyan coast, in response to a terrorist threat. Confirming the danger, two bombs went off in Nairobi, killing ten people. Meanwhile in west Africa, the horrifying abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram remains unresolved – but has highlighted the extent to which large swathes of Africa’s most populous nation are now destabilised by extremist fighters.

One western country that is clearly concerned by a pan-African Islamist threat is France. Over the weekend, the French hosted an international conference – bringing together leaders from African nations, including Cameroon and Nigeria, as well as representatives from the US, UK and EU. Read more

The languishing economy in northern Nigeria has driven recruitment into the brutal insurgency campaign.

Martin Wolf argues that to eliminate excess capacity and raise inflation to 2 per cent, the ECB needs to do “whatever it takes” again or the crisis might yet return.

In March, the Fed stated that interest rates may stay abnormally low even when unemployment and inflation are back to normal, but Janet Yellen has given no detailed explanation of why. Several of the possible explanations, says the FT’s Robin Harding, are either so tenuous or so gloomy that it is easy to see why a Fed chair might be reluctant to talk about them.

If Ukraine loses its southeast region, it could cut off half the economy and push the debt-to-GDP ratio to a dangerously high level.

Author Alaa al-Aswany argues for an Egyptian society when Egyptians who enjoy belly dancing don’t frown upon the women who dance, but appreciate the art form and the value of its performers.

♦ Syria is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. More than 60 have been killed there since the current conflict began and many others have been kidnapped as they become pawns in the conflict.

♦ Simon Schama argues that Scotland‘s exit from the ‘splendid mess’of Britain’s multicultural union would be a disaster.

♦ The town of Chibok, deep in the northeastern Nigeria bush and down the most Boko Haram-dense road in the country, is gripped by fear and pain after the terror group kidnapped more than 200 of its daughters. Read more

Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria’s central bank governor, argues that Africa’s relationship with China carries with it a whiff of colonialism and that Africa must start treating China as a competitor. “Africa is now willingly opening itself up to a new form of imperialism,” writes Sanusi.

Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, and since it represents just 4 per cent of the emerging markets private equity asset class there is plenty of room to expand. But as the African growth story attracts more and more funds the going is getting tougher, reports Katrina Manson.

Steven Cook at the Council on Foreign Relations ponders the need for reform within Egypt’s Ministry of the Interior and the likelihood of it: “As much as bulldozing the Ministry of Interior would likely reverse President Morsi’s declining fortunes, he – like Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi before him – will never do it because he both needs and fears the police.”

The world is in the midst of a sustained oil boom. Yet Africa’s leading producer is haemorrhaging the proceeds. The Nigerian treasury, which should be raking in record revenues, has been squeezed at both ends of the oil trade, writes William Wallis. Read more

One year it even prompted speculation that the Sudanese-born philanthropist and pioneer of African telecoms had run out of money. He had not. Rather, the criteria for the award had to be stiff if it was to have any credibility on a continent with a long history of tyranny and mismanagement. The intent was not just to encourage personal integrity and conformity to democratic principles among African heads of state but to reward transformational leadership. So, it should be no surprise that there have been some fallow years like this one.

Moreover, when it comes to leadership there is a global deficit. If a similar prize had been on offer in Europe in the same period, it would been a struggle to find an irreproachable candidate. In three out of the six years since the Mo Ibrahim prize was launched there have been winners. For the most part, African leaders are more accountable now than they were. In some cases they have been instrumental in turning their countries around. Read more

The World

with Gideon Rachman

Gideon became chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times in July 2006. He joined the FT after a 15-year career at The Economist, which included spells as a foreign correspondent in Brussels, Washington and Bangkok. He also edited The Economist’s business and Asia sections.

His particular interests include American foreign policy, the European Union and globalisation.